I'm a part of the 'Establishment'

I've been one of the regular college going guys - wearing my seriousness, writing down my angst and speaking like a rebel whenever given a chance. Though I never had one, I had always wanted to wear a shirt donning Che Guevara who, for some reason, was a fantastic figure and his face on my shirt a perfect ostentation of my efforts to appear detached from the system. Not to mention, I was, in a sense, completely ignorant of the background, the true details of Guevara's works, his policies and, without taking anything away from Che, the irrelevance of such a figure in terms of Indian administrative system. I wonder if 'The Motorcycle Diaries' could have been as influencing for me had Che traveled in local buses and visited villages in Bihar and Orissa and done what he had done across South America [of course they wouldn't be calling it The Motorcycle Diaries in that case].

We have already set foot in an era where the young have a fantasy for the rebel shirts, the finger signs, the high pitch metal growls - decrying the gods, the administration, everything that is supposed to be a part of 'the system'.

We are all rebels, we hate how the system works, we all want to change it, but most of us don't know what to do about it and hence we conveniently choose to become its critic - rebels of the system who sit at the corner and abhor it. This attitude, as per my experiences, might be because we have never tried to understand how this ever despised system is supposed to work and why it doesn't work the way we want it to, if there is any such way.

Once, while rambling on the internet, I stumbled upon the Government of India website which led to further discoveries of other departments, run by the Indian government, and the way they are planned to work. A look at the report on a recent Economic Survey (http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2008-09/esmain.htm) and I was disgusted at the level of my ignorance about the country I have been living in for all these years - how 25% of us can't spend more than 20 Rs. a day, how 50% of our children are still malnourished, how 35% of us don't even know how to read and write - the list is endless.

I, like billion others, have been a fierce critic of the way our governments work. For example, I was, similar to the kind of minority mentioned by Prateek Prasad in one of his blogs(http://theretrospectator.blogspot.com/2009/08/revolutionary.html), one of the critics of the government's proposal of establishing more IITs. To be honest, the content of the blog wasn't enough to convince me that the the government had reasons -other than political- for doing that. The blog was sentimental at best because it was supposed to be voice of one single person. It took a stint of dedicated readings and a lot of data to make me visualize how vast the needs of such a hugely populated nation as ours are and how difficult it could be for the policymakers to strike a balance between something like providing internationally competent higher education to a selected few and managing the majority of the population still struggling with hunger, lack of primary education, and basic facilities like drinking water and proper sanitation. I looked at the government's proposal from my point of view and I was eager to judge that only a selected few, like us, should be eligible for such high quality education. I forgot about thousand others who are worthy of such education. Similarly when I cribbed about the reservations in jobs, admission processes, and the preferential treatment to some sections of the society I forgot to think about the conditions that most of the people from such sections are living in; the government, the system, it doesn't. Yes, there are a few of us who misuse such facilities but that's our fault not the system's.

Our problem is not the system but we ourselves, and the middle class, the 'so encumbered, so restrained' middle class should take the bulk of the blame because they [we] are more in number when it comes to counting those who can help make the functioning of the system smoother and the results more inclusive. We are quick to dismiss things as the ones not concerning us, unworthy of our attention - "Politicians are despicable because they are corrupt." Aren't we corrupt? Don't we need someone to stand with a whip in his hand for making us follow a rule as simple as wearing a helmet while riding?

We never stop for a minute and thank the system for doing the little but indispensable things like running the local buses, building footpaths, running government taps, public toilets and many such things because most of us don't use it. What's more, we even disdain those traveling in the overcrowded buses, queuing in front of the government taps.

Only when one buys a 5 rupee ticket and stands in a local bus with a guy who earns a meager 60 Rs. a day will one understand the importance of a system in place.

The fact of the matter is that we should consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have a system which provides us with a plethora of facilities at our disposal. We have one of the best written constitutions in the world which guarantees, at least on paper, the security of the rights of every single national, a respectable and largely untainted judiciary which provides even the most destitute with a branch of its unshakable roots to hold on to when in need, and a bunch of brilliant policymakers who design the working model, all of which are integral parts of building a sustainable and self sufficient framework.

What we lack is the skill of execution. All the policies are wasted if we don't execute according to plans. The middlemen, mostly middle class people, fail us. What we require is not a change in the system but its overhaul, tightening of the loose screws here and there, a lot of oiling and a few replacements if necessary, but before that we need to believe that our system works and that it can be bettered . We need to appreciate what it strives to do for us and what it's capable of doing. We need to take pride in what we do. We need to acknowledge that our system, despite being without the support of majority of its beneficiaries, is so liberal to give us the freedom to be a critic.

We don't need a new system. It's already in place and it needs - more than a Che Guevara - a few helping hands and some believers.

I respect the system that I am a part of and I'd rather be a laborer and be a part of it than be a critic and sit outside it.

An ode to the dead

On this crazy Friday night
I saw her
losing it.

Whatever they say
it wasn't a fight.

Three straight days
and the nights that followed,
as the end was nearing
death herself mellowed.

what happens to the race
when you just stop running,
when eyes stop blinking
and the mind is the being.

I hope it was easy
I hope it was fun
though i still see you here
you are already with The One.

- to the moth who met her end this evening after four days of stillness.